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Julian Assange

Readers interested in the fate of Julian Assange, his bid for a seat in the Australian Senate and the legal and political reasons why he’s still in grave danger of extradition to the United States, might…

Hong Kong: A Second Tiananmen?

In Hong Kong, public tensions are mounting over Beijing’s recent decision to restrict free and fair elections in 2017. A week-long strike by students begins on September 22. The citizens’ initiative Occupy…

Cui Jian’s A Piece of Red Cloth…

‘Few Chinese, myself included, really knew what rock 'n roll was back then. But we knew it was something that gave out energy. It was music with a message.’ ‘I performed at Tiananmen Square in 1989, 15…

A Moment With Gough Whitlam

Edward Gough Whitlam has passed on, leaving behind millions of citizens saddened by scores of eloquent obituaries reminding us how, once upon a time, Australian politics produced world-class leaders courageously…

Edward Snowden and the Right of Public Refuge

Along with contributions by Ulrich Beck, Julia Kristeva and others, the following short statement was published in Politiken, the largest-circulation daily newspaper in Denmark: With a political noose…

Coal, Divestment and Democracy

Pushed and pulled in different directions by government policies and market forces, modern universities try hard to be public institutions for the public good. Fond of proclamations, their efforts are…

The Greening of Democratic Politics

Readers interested in some of the big political ideas and trends of our time may like to listen to a recent talk on the greening of democratic politics. Hosted in Sydney by the newly-founded Institute…

John Keane

John Keane is co-founder of the Sydney Democracy Network (SDN) and Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney and the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB). His full-scale history of democracy, The…